Must Read Book

Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

I had done a lot of research before our adoption and I felt I was as prepared as I could be.  The focus of most of my research was on post-institutionalized kids and/or attachment.  While it was a gradual process and didn’t happen overnight, I felt that L was attaching very well and in a healthy way.  I watched her like a hawk initially and even now, I periodically watch her critically to make sure she isn’t demonstrating any attachment issues. 

While I was very sure that L showed good signs of attachment, there were little things that would niggle at the back of my brain.  I have seen certain behaviors and reactions from her that were unusual, very intensely when we first met and less often but still occasionally now.  But they weren’t attachment and I didn’t have any other framework to use to identify them.  But I knew it was *something*.

Recently, I read Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes.  As I was reading, I started recognizing L and her behavior in the descriptions of trauma and traumatized children.  It was as if all the puzzle pieces finally fit together.  Since we met L, I have said she was traumatized by losing her ayis and her home.  I would refer to “trauma” in kind of a flippant way, but it turns out I was more right than I knew. 

I turned the pages with tears rolling down my cheeks because I could see that I wasn’t crazy.  I had see proof that my baby is a tough little survivor who was reacting in a completely normal way to a shitty situation (being handed to complete strangers with no warning).  I had a vocabulary for her behaviors: the disassociation, the terror, the reliving the trauma in similar situations.  It all made sense.

Despite all my research, I had only read brief references to trauma and L paid the price of my ignorance.  While she would probably have been traumatized by her handover no matter what we did (due to China’s crappy system of not allowing pre-placement visits), we could have avoided re-traumatizing her if I knew then what I know now.

This book is a starting place for me to figure out the next steps in helping L get past the trauma she experienced.  There are concrete suggestions.  While her symptoms are rather minor now, if they flare up again in the future, I know the kind of therapist I will need to find when she is older.  I know how to describe what is going on. 

Maybe it doesn’t happen to every kid, but it happened to mine.  I really believe this book should be on ever pre-adoption reading list for people adopting toddlers or older kids.